Public Bill Committee

[Mr. Christopher Chope in the Chair]

Clause 131

Conduct that may be covered by code

Phil Woolas: I beg to move amendment No. 185, in clause 131, page 91, line 9, leave out from ‘(2)’ to end of line 11 and insert
‘include principles which are to apply at all times to a person who is a member or co-opted member.”’.

Christopher Chope: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments Nos. 186 and 187.
Amendment No. 124, in clause 131, page 91, line 21, leave out subsection (4).
Government amendment No. 188.

Phil Woolas: Good morning, Mr. Chope. I am glad that the sun is shining on the Committee this morning, although I note that the hon. Member for Hazel Grove is having some difficulty in seeing. Perhaps on his behalf I may ask for some protection from the rays.

Andrew Stunell: I am not sure whether this is a point of order, but I see the Minister in a golden haze with the sun behind him—it gives a somewhat unreal impression.

Christopher Chope: I am sure that the Doorkeeper will sort that out.

Phil Woolas: Nothing has changed this morning, then. I am normally accused of being in a purple haze.
 Turning to the amendments to clause 131, relating to standards for councillors, the remit of the code of conduct for council members is important. We are dealing with two issues. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove raised this matter on Second Reading and during the evidence-taking. It is important that I explain what the Government are trying to achieve. I am convinced that there will be consensus on that, but I am conscious that hon. Members, after reading the explanatory notes and the clause, will have the impression—for reasons that I shall explain—that we are trying to do the opposite of what we are really trying to do. In addition, it is very important to the Government that, as far as possible, there should be parliamentary consensus on the standards code. It is not a party-political matter, but is designed to achieve two things: to ensure that there is probity in the conduct of councillors, and—this is perhaps more difficult—to ensure that that is seen to happen. To achieve that second objective, I must try to persuade the Committee that there is consensus. I shall listen especially carefully—even more carefully than I usually do—to the points made by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee so that we may have confidence.

Tom Levitt: I would be grateful if my hon. Friend would add a third principle to his list, given the changes that are proposed. It is one that came up during the scrutiny and evidence sittings: the principle that there should be consistency across the country. Without a national Standards Board, it might seem difficult to ensure that the same standards were being applied throughout.

Phil Woolas: I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. Throughout our deliberations on the Bill we have debated how to obtain devolution and decentralisation along with equity and consistency. Squaring that circle has been a challenge for Governments of all persuasions. I believe that the balance and mechanism needed to achieve those things has been reached elsewhere in the Bill, and I shall explain when we consider later clauses how, we believe, through regulation and resourcing, we can move towards our goal. There are some important Opposition amendments—I believe that they probing amendments—which will allow us to tease out my hon. Friend’s point. The point came up at the annual standards conference that I attended in Birmingham.
 The amendments will enable us to achieve the policy objective of encompassing within the code of conduct instances where members acting outside their official duties receive a criminal conviction. Such a conviction would lead to action being taken against the member by the authority’s standards committee or, if appropriate, the Standards Board. We are trying to say that the code of conduct should not cover a councillor’s private life, with the caveat that if a criminal conviction was involved, that should be taken on board by the standards committee.

Andrew Stunell: I very much appreciate what the Minister has said which, as he quite rightly points out, goes against what appears to be the plain meaning of subsection (4). That subsection is the subject of amendment No. 124, which I will speak to in a few moments. Notwithstanding the plain meaning of that subsection, will the Minister explain why it does not mean what everyone thought that it meant?

Phil Woolas: Yes, of course. I am grateful for the opportunity to do so—perhaps I should have done that at the beginning of my speech. The problem lies in the court judgment on the Livingstone case—the Mayor of London case. In layperson’s terms, the judge said that the law currently does not allow the code of conduct as it stands to be considered. That was, in essence, the conclusion of the judgment. In order to allow the remit of the code of conduct to be along the lines that I have prescribed—not to include the private life of the councillor—and to comply with the judge’s remarks, we have to amend the law, which makes the remit of the code of conduct appear tougher in law, but allows the code itself, which is public, to be restricted. In other words, the law has to be widened and clarified so that the code can be narrowed. That is the contradiction that we are facing. As we go through the clause, I hope that all will become clear.

Bob Neill: I have sympathy for what the Minister is trying to achieve. However, as the amendment stems from the judgment in the Livingstone case—some of us have had the benefit of seeing the whole text of that judgment—does the Minister consider this to be an exceptional circumstance in which he would be prepared to publish the legal advice that forms the basis for him saying that it is necessary to broaden the law to narrow the code so that we can see the rationale behind his proposal to get around the awkward judgment?

Phil Woolas: I have not seen such legal advice. Of course I have seen the judgment and I have read extensively the interpretation of the judgment of outside sources. The policy that I wish to adopt with regard to the code has been known for some time. Indeed, there has been consultation on the code. I will be very open with the hon. Gentleman because I wish to persuade him that I am proposing the right course of action. The instruction to the parliamentary counsel in preparing this section of the Bill did not involve me relying on legal advice. The Department may have been involved in considering such advice, but in drawing up this policy and this Bill, I did not rely on such advice other than that which said that I needed to amend the law to achieve what I wanted to achieve. The questions that the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Hazel Grove and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak have asked were the same as those that my colleagues and I asked our officials and advisers, because the issue is important for councillors.

Bob Neill: I appreciate what the Minister is saying, but will he clarify one point? He will have seen the memorandum submitted by the Mayor of London, and there are a number of specific concerns. First, the clause as drafted appears to contradict the advice of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Secondly, the clause appears to contradict articles 8 and 10 of the European convention on human rights. Will the Minister tell us how the amendments will address those issues?

Phil Woolas: I am a great fan of the Mayor of London, with whom I work closely on civil resilience and other matters. As a result of their advice surgeries, hon. Members will be familiar with the notion that article 8 has many interpretations. The Lord Chancellor has recently clarified the law on that. To save time, I will continue with my remarks and then answer questions.
Getting the remit of the code of conduct right is, of course, a central element of the conduct regime for local government. Let me set out the context of the policy for developing an effective conduct regime that will be fit for purpose and that will carry public confidence in the way in which I have described. We take the promotion of high standards of conduct seriously—as do all hon. Members. Poor standards of behaviour by members would threaten the vital bond of trust between councillors and their electorate and contribute to public disengagement from the political process. I am taking care to put in place a regime that does not contribute towards disillusionment with politics because of how it is used in practice. At the heart of the regime is the code of conduct for each authority, which sets out the behaviour expected of members. It is the duty of each authority to adopt such a code and to have regard to the model code set out in regulations under the Local Government Act 2000.
Alongside the code provided by Parliament in the 2000 Act, which the Bill will modify, a regulatory regime will be introduced by which councils’ standards committees and the Standards Board—the national body—can ensure that allegations of misconduct are investigated and that high standards of conduct are promoted locally. To give the public an assurance that high standards will be followed and to underline our expectation that members should set an example of leadership to their communities, we consider that they should act lawfully at all times—even when they are not carrying out their work as councillors. We consider, therefore, that conduct in a member’s private capacity that has been found to be criminal—conduct that has resulted in a criminal conviction—should be covered by the members’ code of conduct in every local authority.
The purpose of Government amendments Nos. 185 to 187 is to ensure that enabling powers are provided in the model code of conduct to allow members to refer to a member’s behaviour at all times. Through such enabling powers, our policy will apply to codes everywhere that cover private conduct that has resulted in a criminal conviction. Let me make it clear that I am not proposing that the model code should cover any aspect of a member’s conduct outside his or her role on the council other than that resulting in a criminal conviction.

David Burrowes: In the Government’s response to the Graham committee, they said that the code should be restricted to matters regarded as unlawful. The Government are now restricting it to matters that are criminal, but unlawfulness covers more than simply criminal behaviour.

Phil Woolas: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on picking up that point. When I gave evidence on the standards code, that was one of the matters that was discussed. In defining unlawful, the Bill contains a definition of criminal, but hon. Members would, I am sure, like to know that a criminal conviction resulting in a prison sentence of three months or more is already covered by legislation. We are talking about criminal convictions below—I am sure that that is not a legal phrase—three months’ imprisonment, rather than the wider point that the hon. Gentleman makes about unlawfulness.

David Burrowes: If that is the case, are the Government defining criminal actions as recordable offences, or ones that cover the expanding remit of criminal convictions? That covers environmental protection. Some offences are not necessarily recordable, but may be defined as criminal.

Phil Woolas: We are talking about actions of individuals that result in a criminal conviction.

David Burrowes: Is that a recordable criminal conviction?

Phil Woolas: The hon. Gentleman is quite reasonably trying to push me into areas on which I am not qualified to comment. I will get an answer for him because it is important that the matter is understood. We are providing for a situation in which a councillor who has been convicted of an offence in a court, but who wants—probably against the wishes of the council and his or her colleagues—not to be covered by the standards committee. I know of two such examples in recent months. I emphasise that bad behaviour on the part of the many tens of thousands of councillors in this country is very rare. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point and I shall give him a specific answer either later in the proceedings or in writing.
We want to provide that a member must not, in his private capacity, use his position as a member to confer an advantage on himself or others. Under the current regime, it is not open to an authority to extend or increase the mandatory areas of private behaviour covered by the code. We proposed that approach in our discussion paper of December 2005 and it has been supported by the Local Government Association. We are consulting on the precise provisions of the code and, in the light of responses, we shall either confirm our intention or reconsider our approach.
The amendments provide improved drafting of the original reference in the Bill to the aim that the principles that underline the code of conduct for members and the provisions of the code itself should not be limited to principles or provisions applying to a member only in his official capacity. It is important to make it clear what remit the clause is required to cover. To improve clarity, the original wording is replaced with reference to the fact that the principles and provisions are to apply to a member at all times.
In contrast, Opposition amendment No. 124 would to retain the current position with regard to the code of conduct following last year’s High Court judgment in the case of the London Mayor, which is that conduct in a member’s private capacity is excluded from the code unless it is closely connected with the member’s official role. That leads to a number of anomalies, which I hope the Committee will agree are not desirable.
 For example, an assault by a member arising from a dispute with a fellow councillor at a council meeting would be proscribed by the code, but an assault carried out on a member of the public in the street or in the member’s home would not be likely to be covered, apart from the caveat that we have discussed. Behaviour committed by a member, including sexual offences for which the member has been convicted, might not be covered by the code if there were no direct link between the behaviour and the member’s role as a councillor. The amendment would retain anomalies such as that, which I hope the Committee agrees does not provide a sensible framework for ensuring public confidence.
Amendment No. 188 makes a minor amendment to ensure that appropriate reference is made to part 3 of the Local Government Act 2000. I am grateful for being able to lay out the Government’s policy.
I shall now answer the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst. On the advice of the Department’s lawyers following the judgment, there is only internal legal advice to the Minister about what was needed to deliver the long-standing policy. We will write setting out the detailed analysis underlying our approach. The advice confirms what my memory was telling me.

John Pugh: The assumption behind the changes is a clear distinction between a member’s private capacity and his capacity qua councillor. When a councillor is functioning as a councillor, clearly he is covered by the code of conduct. Equally, when he is on a body ex officio or as a nominee of the council, he is acting as a councillor. However, councillors are invited to perform lots of other roles. They are asked to participate in quangos, partnerships, community associations and so on, where they are billed and described as councillors. Is that the private world and thus not covered by the code of conduct? I think that following the Livingstone ruling, that is what the Standards Board thinks.

Phil Woolas: The behaviour of a councillor in conducting his or her duties in such public roles would be covered by the code. The issue that I was most concerned to address, and to which I hope we shall come, is the double-hatted issue. Under the code as it stands, a councillor acting in a different role—perhaps as a member of an external body—is debarred from advocating in the council on behalf of that body. That was brought to my attention by my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, the mayor of whose council was a member of the Olympics committee but who was debarred under the code from acting as an advocate for the Olympics in Newham, despite the fact that he is its mayor. The double-hatted approach is not sensible if councillors are to be allowed to do their job. Where the councillor is a member ex officio of another body, that is covered by the code. The clauses refer to “official duties” in that regard.

John Pugh: It applies where councillors belong ex officio or are deliberately appointed by a council, but they may peradventure join a body that is publicly funded where they are identified as a councillor. For instance, they may be invited by a local community association to become a member because they are the local councillor. In such circumstances, is that the private or the public world?

Phil Woolas: If they are representing the council, it is covered. If not, it is not. That is precisely the sort of point that we need to debate, because such circumstances might result in a situation in which the fact that a person is a councillor might not be the reason why they have been appointed to a body such as a community association, but public perception is otherwise. If one pursues such a function as a councillor, even though the purpose of one’s being on the body is irrelevant to one’s position, of course the standards committee will want to have a say. It is the same for any ethical code. The issue is similar to those that our own codes consider, although in fact our code is slightly wider.
If I have not answered any specific questions, I shall do so during the course of the debate, but I hope that I have explained what we are trying to achieve. I invite the Committee to support the amendment.

Andrew Stunell: As the Minister rightly says, my hon. Friends and I tabled amendment No. 124 on the assumption that the words in the Bill mean what they say. [Interruption.] Although I have been here for a number of years, I am still naïve enough sometimes to believe that that could be the case.
I acknowledge that the Minister has said all that I could have hoped he would say in response, but he has led us into an Alice in Wonderland world where we must expand the scope of the law to catch even more people in even more cases so that we can let them off. I am sure that he will not mind if I am a little concerned and wish to explore exactly where that will take us. I hope that, in the spirit in which you allowed the Minister to set out a broader context, that you will not mind if I do the same, Mr. Chope.
The Liberal Democrats have a long-standing concern, one widely shared in the local government community, about the way in which the Standards Board for England has worked and the consequences of that over the years. In some cases, it has resulted in a trivialisation of the complaints procedure and in the Standards Board becoming another weapon in a partisan dialogue. On many occasions, it has traumatised good councillors, who have found themselves subject to Standards Board procedures and, because of the rather bizarre process, have not been made fully aware of the charges they faced and left in limbo, not just for a few weeks, but for months or even a year or two.
The problems have been compounded by our risk-averse society which means that when they are asked “Might this possibly, at the very outer limit, be an interest?” monitoring officers on councils will always reply, “Yes, of course it is. You must declare and you must not participate.” The process of monitoring has often resulted in tightening, often in directions that clearly produce an anti-democratic outcome in which elected representatives are not able to participate in key decisions affecting their local communities. Some of the proposed changes will deal with part of that problem, but not all of it.
 Even now, in essence, if someone is local, they are disqualified. That seems to be the reverse of what we ought to be creating, which is strong local representation by people who can participate in decision making and bring to bear their own facts and information. I hope the Minister will give some assurance that the “if you are local, you are disqualified” rules that have come to pass for the Standards Board and for monitoring officers are going to be a thing of the past, and that delays in cases being dealt with will be very shorter.
On Second Reading, I pointed out that the draft code and the Government’s commentary have been published but they will not, as far as I can tell, be subject to debate in this House, other than the debate that we are having this morning. I hope that the Minister will also say that he will be open to a wider debate and that he will have a word with the Leader of the House about providing an opportunity for the code to be the subject of discussion in the House at some future time. To make a simple point, that future time needs to be before he decides what the code is to be.
On Report, we may well want to say something about predisposition and bias, both of which are core limitations on the application of the code and the effect on members’ conduct.
 As the Minister said, amendment No. 124 is designed to ensure that the code applies nine to five and not 24/7. His interpretation of the amendment is absolutely correct. A clear understanding needs to come out of this Committee and be embedded in the legislation. If we are going to extend the application beyond nine to five—beyond on-duty hours—what exactly are we extending? The Minister has been clear that we are going to extend it only to events which have resulted in criminal convictions. As he rightly said, if the criminal conviction results in a sentence of three months or more, it is already covered by a disqualification rule and no one would seek to overturn that.
Can the Minister give some assurance that, having broadened the law to include the 24/7 concept, the risk assessors who have got us into so much trouble in the past—the monitoring officers—will not be saying, “Ah, well, I think that that ought to be included.”? There is a mandatory element to the code and a discretionary element, which might be added by a particular council or a particular monitoring officer or, on a particularly bad day, by an interpretation by a monitoring officer. How will the Minister protect councillors from that ad hoc creep of rules and rulings as a consequence of the huge broadening of the impact of the code?
We all know of many examples, which go far beyond the Livingstone case, where one might ask questions. Clearly, if somebody speeds in their own borough council area and gets a conviction, that will be subject to the code. However, if they speed while on holiday in Tenerife, will that be subject to the code? Many such examples show that there is scope for all sorts of mischief making to occur. I hope that, if the Minister cannot answer such questions now—I will understand if that is so—he will ensure that the Committee is fully appraised of how the Government intend to proceed.
Our amendment is simple, blunt and straightforward and is intended to retain the law of the land as the courts decided it was in the outcome of the Mayor of London case. That is clearly sufficient for the courts, and we thought that it should be sufficient for Parliament. Underpinning the amendment is a view that the same level of standards and code of conduct should apply to all elected representatives in the United Kingdom democracy. What is good for Members of Parliament sitting on this Committee should be good for councillors and vice versa. It is not right for Members in the House to impose on councillors a higher duty of care and a higher level of conduct than we are prepared to impose on ourselves. That also goes to the heart of the predisposition and bias argument, which I understand is not the subject of this amendment, Mr. Chope, but is something that we all want to raise on Report.
I would have pressed other points strongly if the Minister had not already conceded them. I must acknowledge that he clearly wants—or says that he wants—to go exactly in the same direction as we do. To have a residual 24/7 theme that picks up the rest of the criminal convictions seems sensible.
I accept that amendment No. 124 does not allow for that and I concede that my amendment probably should not stand in its current form. Perhaps it should be tweaked slightly to include criminal convictions. However, I should prefer to see in the Bill a clear, specific limitation of the extension only to matters that have led to criminal convictions, rather than opening it up to everything and leaving it to the discretion of the Minister, and subsequent Ministers, and the good will of the House and monitoring officers not slowly to extend, subsequently, into other areas. There will always be an outlandish incident that results not in a conviction, but just in national outrage. I can see the Minister, or some future Minister, saying, “We will eliminate that now and change the code”, but never coming back and referring it to the House.
I hope that the Minister gives a good account of himself. Whether I shall press amendment No. 124 depends on his response.

Robert Syms: It will probably save time if we have a slightly more gentle debate at the start, then we can whizz through the other business. I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman has said and I am grateful for the Minister’s open approach. We all want to get the Bill right.
 My party’s view on the Standards Board is clear. We fought the last election on the policy of abolishing it. Our current policy is evolving and we will come to a view—[Laughter.]—having no doubt widely consulted. I suspect, however, that at the end of the deliberations on the Bill, we will have to consider seriously the regime that we get. In doing so, we will rely on talking with many of our friends in local government to see whether they are happy. Clearly, people are not happy with the current regime. Anyone who really wants councils to have a good discussion need only mention the standards boards; councils will just not stop going on about the difficulties that they have.
I am glad that the Minister briefly mentioned that we shall come later to the issues around double-hatting, because they are constantly raised. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove raised the point about things being local, and people have talked to me about school reorganisations and about living in wards where monitoring officers prevent them from speaking on planning committees. Clearly, there is some nonsense going on, and I hope that we shall at least be able to put an end to some of it by the time we reach the end of the Bill so that people can genuinely represent their constituents. The old regime, based on pecuniary interest, was a lot better and, in some respects, a lot clearer. When we reach these issues later, therefore, I hope that we shall be able to narrow the scope of the provisions somewhat to allow people to be good local representatives.
The other thing that has always concerned me is speed, and some complaints can, indeed, go on for two years. We shall come later to the clauses that deal with the complaints process, and I think that that period may be too long. I hope that the regime that we get will be much speedier, because it is no fun, however innocent someone feels, to have an allegation hanging over one’s head for a long time. Some of the most disappointed people in local government are those who have had complaints made against them and been cleared, but who have gone through months, and sometimes years, with a cloud over them. That takes a lot of the fun out of representing one’s local community, so we really need to tackle that issue.
 At the beginning of this section of our debate, the Minister talked about widening the law to narrow it, and we shall clearly need to be reassured about how narrow it is by the time we get towards the end of the Bill. Although I have an advantage in not being a lawyer—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—I wish I had been one, because I keep having to turn to those of my hon. Friends who are lawyers to find out where the boundaries are. We need to be very specific in the guidance. The hon. Member for Hazel Grove mentioned speeding, but my hon. Friends say that that offence would not be included, although drink driving and careless driving might be. What about cruelty to animals?

David Burrowes: Careless driving, no; fly-tipping, no.

Robert Syms: Fly-tipping is not covered. We therefore need some reassurance from the Minister, although perhaps not now, about what is in and what is not.
I agree with what the hon. Member for Hazel Grove said about creep: we do not want monitoring officers bringing in rather more extraneous issues so that the boundaries start growing. As the provisions are drafted, there is scope for extending the boundaries, and we should like things to be rather clearer. That is a job for the Government lawyers, who can give advice on these issues as we get further into the Bill.
We have an opportunity to have the highest standards in local government, while making it easy for people to do the job that they were elected to do. I hope that we take that opportunity and that our friends in local government will thank us for that.

John Pugh: I rise to endorse the sentiments that have been expressed, and I do so on the basis of my observations, which are perhaps shared by most people who have served on local councils. For as long as the standards bodies have existed, many quite decent councillors have felt that their reputations have been besmirched, often through acts of political malice, and quite unnecessarily so. The Standards Board must accept some blame for that. Not so long ago, I got a huge brown paper parcel, which I opened to find—[ Interruption. ] I can assure hon. Members that it was not a backhander. In fact, it contained about 100 brochures from the Standards Board about how to complain about a councillor, and I was asked to distribute them to all and sundry.
The board was therefore encouraging people to make complaints and touting for work, and it did that against the background of a lack of clarity. Legal officers sometimes have difficulty knowing how to advise a planning committee; indeed, anybody who knows anything about planning seems to be debarred from talking about it to anybody at all. I had a particularly nice dilemma in my neck of the woods, where there was a schools reorganisation, which affected every school. Practically every councillor, quite reasonably, was on a governing body, so I asked the director of legal services whether any of them could actually vote on the council’s policy. I found that about 80 per cent. were debarred from doing so, so the council was more or less rendered inquorate in making a very difficult decision. In the end, rather than clear up the rules, the council simply wrote to the Standards Board for an exemption or some protection for what it was doing, but there was a complete muddle. There have to be some regrets about a body that is boisterously set into action, suggesting that there is a series of standards that it wants to enforce, but that leaves the standards themselves very unclear to the people who have to implement them.

Bob Neill: I support what has been said. I have a number of concerns about the way we approach standards. That is not to come to the defence of my good friend the Mayor of London. Although my view as to the boorishness and stupidity of his conduct is on the record, I am inclined to agree with his basic contention that it should not have been for the Standards Board to get into the situation of trying to remove him from office. There is an underlying malaise with the current arrangements.
A couple of other points concern me. The principal point, made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove, is that there is an inherent sense of injustice among many people involved in local government who feel that we in the House set higher standards for them than we expect of ourselves. That needs to be addressed and I hope that the Government will seize this opportunity to do so. The situation simply cannot be right as a matter of principle and I am not sure that the amendments, even those from the Government, address that point yet.
The second point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate, who has particular expertise in these matters, having practised in the criminal courts as a solicitor. The Minister’s test, probably sensibly, is what is a recordable offence, but members of the public often do not draw a distinction with certain types of offences that are criminal in a layman’s interpretation but are not recordable. Those among us who are lawyers will have come across them. My hon. Friend the Member for Poole highlighted that point. It is therefore very important that it is spelt out that we are talking about a recordable offence, and it is also important that the public are aware of what is recordable.
I may be corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate, but I think that if, for example, someone receives a fixed penalty ticket because they have fallen foul of a speed camera, that is not recordable. There comes a point at which they might, if they have been particularly foolish, end up being disqualified under the totting-up procedures, which involves a court appearance, and they might be unlucky enough for the local journalist to be there and to pick up on who they are. I do not think that that is recordable either.

David Burrowes: Just to challenge my hon. Friend slightly, it may be—this is certainly consistent with the Government’s response to the Graham Committee—that the provision should be extended beyond recordable offences when, say, councillors are repeatedly fly-tipping in their own ward. That would not be a recordable conviction, but it would be a criminal conviction. [Interruption.] To many people, it would be. Perhaps that is a matter that affects conduct and should be taken into account and properly adjudicated on by a standards committee. There are other examples—perhaps even repeated speeding up and down a road. Again, that is not a recordable offence, but it results in a criminal conviction and it may be one that should be taken into account. Those matters need clarification, particularly as we know what has happened in the magistrates courts. The Government have been repeatedly extending the ambit of the criminal courts to cover more areas, so that areas that normally would not be within the ambit of the criminal courts now are.

Bob Neill: I am grateful to my hon. Friend because he makes the point very well. There is a real problem. I would prefer that we did not have this structure, because I think that it is overblown, for the reasons that have been set out, but if we are to have it, there has to be some rationale in the way it works and there has to appear to be a rationale to ordinary members of the public. Certain types of conduct, although deplorable, might not, in isolation, constitute something that the public regard as so important that it affects their view of the councillor’s fitness for office. An example might be someone falling foul of a speed camera. As my hon. Friend says, however, there could be other types of conduct that at the moment would not come within the definition of recordable, such as fly-tipping, which manifestly would affect the public’s view, so we are in an odd situation unless there is much more clarity.

Andrew Stunell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the examples that we have been discussing are prime territory for creep, whereby an initial ruling is expanded, either locally or nationally, in response to perceived difficulties with the current level? Therefore, it would be far better not to go into this territory at all.

Bob Neill: I am very much with the hon. Gentleman on that. I would prefer that we did not have the Standards Board bureaucracy, because my experience was that under the old regime if something was really bad it came to light. Most people knew what was out of order, and such matters were picked up on and dealt with accordingly.
I recall, a long time ago, before the Standards Board regime, acting for a councillor who had been given a suspended sentence of three months in prison, which resulted in his disqualification. We went to the Court of Appeal and persuaded it to reduce the sentence to two months so that the councillor was not disqualified. Part of the argument we put was that it should be for his electorate to judge his fitness to be a councillor in the light of his conduct. The Court of Appeal agreed. At the next election, his electorate booted him out of office, which perhaps was the just outcome for all concerned. However, the matter was resolved without any bureaucracy, so the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right.

Tom Levitt: A couple of years ago, High Peak borough council had an independent councillor—that is important because it means that he was not subject to party discipline—against whom very serious allegations of bullying both officers and other councillors were made. The councillor was suspended, taken off the council, and banned from public office for two years by the Standards Board, and rightly so. However, because it was so intimidating for councillors and officers to give evidence in the case, it took an outside body deal with it. The councillor’s removal was quite right. He was then replaced, so people in that ward had a proper representative for two years, rather than continuing in the limbo that the hon. Gentleman suggested would result if there was no referral mechanism.

Bob Neill: I think that the code covers the situation that the hon. Gentleman describes, and we have to be careful due to the danger of making broad legislation on the basis of hard cases, which is a worry for many of us. This goes back to the point that was made about mission creep. There have generally been other means, using elements of the code, of dealing with cases of blatant bad behaviour. I take the point that was made about party discipline, but I do not think that that in itself is an argument for the major broadening that the measure potentially involves, however good the intention behind it is—I accept that the Minister has good intentions.
 My final point relates strongly to an issue that we have not debated under this group of amendments: the question of predisposition and planning. Many of us with experience of local government find the increasingly restrictive interpretation of predisposition ludicrous because, in effect, it almost gags local councillors from dealing with controversial planning issues in their wards. I will give an example from a ward in which there is a proposal to build a major housing development on the local golf club, which is an important factor because the course is one of the major green areas in the ward.

Phil Woolas: Is it your golf club?

Bob Neill: It is not my golf club, and it is not in Pratts Bottom, and I hasten to add that the club is not even in my parliamentary constituency or my Greater London assembly constituency, although I am familiar with it. The proposed development is the biggest issue in that area because of the implications of building there. The club is in a local authority that has elections by thirds and the issue has been rumbling along for some time, so at every election people quite rightly want to know where the candidates stand on the proposed development. However, if any candidate for the ward stands as being for or against the development, they will be unable to vote on any planning committee that deals with the matter. What a lot of nonsense that is—it is a ludicrous situation. I would like to have some assurance that we can use the opportunity presented by the Bill to get rid of that absolute absurdity. I can think of nothing that turns people off democracy more than the kind of situation I described. What the hell is the point of voting for a candidate who can take no part in making a decision on an issue because they have previously expressed a view on it? It is a nonsense, and surely to goodness we can use this opportunity to get rid of the problem.

Phil Woolas: Thank you for your chairing of this sitting, Mr. Chope. I am sure that the Committee appreciates your lenience. Despite the fact that the blinds have been put down, I intend to regain my golden haze by agreeing with what the hon. Gentlemen have said and by explaining how we can implement the policies that have been discussed.
The hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate raised an important point about recorded crime and the meaning of the term “unlawful”. As has been mentioned by hon. Members, the Government are running a consultation exercise on the code. This morning we are discussing the law that will bring about that code. The Government support the idea of having a debate on the code. The statutory instrument that will introduce it will be subject to the negative procedure, which will require a Member to pray against it. I undertake to speak to the Leader of the House about this because if a debate was possible, it would help to give people confidence in the code, as well as giving hon. Members the opportunity to speak about it.
 In the consultation, “unlawful” means a criminal conviction, but as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate may know, whether that should include recorded convictions is a matter for the consultation. The views expressed will of course be taken on board. I am sure that there will be a lot of interest on that point. Importantly, to address the problem that was described as creep, if the model code provides such a limitation on criminal convictions—it will be a mandatory provision of the code—individual councils would not be able to go further in their own codes. That, of course, is our intention, and we will clarify that in the code.
 Hon. Gentlemen said that we should not be doing anything that sees Members of Parliament in a better light than councillors. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak served as a distinguished member of the Standards and Privileges Committee for some six years. I can testify to that because, to his credit, despite my probing him harshly, he refused to talk to me about a case in which I was indirectly involved. I am happy to put that on record. The law debars people from being Members of Parliament if they have been sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment. However, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards can investigate and make recommendations to the Standards and Privileges Committee in other circumstances. Parliament is a sovereign body; that is a unique situation and, in effect, it is the reason why we regulate ourselves.
In future, it will be possible under this regime for councillors not to be disqualified because they have a local interest, including for planning permissions. The caveat will be that if a councillor has a greater interest than another member of the public in that ward, he will be restricted—in other words, that will be the case if there is direct self-interest. Other than that, the Government agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and others. The model code on which we are consulting directly addresses that local issue. It will provide that ward councillors will be able to participate in decisions about their wards if their interests are no more than those of others who live in that ward. That is important, and I thank the hon. Gentlemen for their comments.
 Andrew Stunell rose—

Phil Woolas: I give way briefly, because we are nearly out of time.

Andrew Stunell: I appreciate the tight deadline. Do the Minister’s comments apply also to planning, where monitoring officers often take a contrary view?

Phil Woolas: It does apply to planning for precisely the sort of reasons raised by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst.
On the point about speed, the regime that we hope to put into place will abolish the national adjudication role. It was the adjudication committee and the adjudication process, not the Standards Board itself, that caused the severe delay in the Islington case, which caused such controversy. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Poole for clarifying Conservative party policy—[Laughter.] My goal is to persuade the Opposition that they should support the Standards Board.
The hon. Member for Southport mentioned a box of leaflets. It was the arrival of a similar box in my constituency office that led me to the views that I have expounded this morning. A leaflet that says, “Is your councillor corrupt?” does not instil confidence in the democratic process. The changes that we are making to the regime will improve the standing of the democratic process and elected councillors.

Amendment agreed to.

It being twenty-five minutes past Ten o'clock, The Chairmanadjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at Two o’clock.